What happens when the world sees children differently

News about global efforts to end child labor – and ensure each child’s growth, protection, and innocence – is encouraging. A new report shows the number of children put to work has declined by 22 million in the past five years.

This latest drop is part of a 25-year trend that’s seen a 44% decline, aside from an upward blip during the pandemic. In 2000, there were an estimated 245.5 million child laborers.

The progress stems not only from better laws and enforcement but also from expanding economies and access to education. In 1990, an international treaty on the rights of children – defined as persons up to the age of 18 – came into force. After a decade of campaigns against the use of child workers by international companies, new trade rules began to curb the practice.

Yet, according to Kailash Satyarthi, an activist against child labor and corecipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, something else is going on. “I sense a moral shift. Officials, politicians, even judges now take children’s issues more seriously,” he told India’s NDTV earlier this year.

“But real change,” he cautioned, “will only come when society wakes up. Governments alone can’t do it.”

Citizens concerned about safeguarding the worth of each child still have their work cut out for them. An estimated 138 million children between 5 and 17 years old are engaged in what the International Labour Organization describes as work they “are too young to perform” and is harmful to their health, safety, and well-being. Even in the United States, with longstanding laws against child labor, hundreds of migrant children are involved in hazardous work.

The vast majority of child laborers – two-thirds – are in sub-Saharan Africa. Part of the reason is Africa’s fast-growing youth population. But unstable governments, pervasive poverty, and natural disasters also drive young children into the workforce – as do cultural practices.

In Ghana, where 21% of children work, child labor has been seen as a way to socialize children and skill them for the future. So the government and activists are directly engaging communities and families. James Kofi Annan, once enslaved in the fishing industry from ages 6 to 13, raises public awareness through radio broadcasts. The work of rescuing child laborers and returning them to school is bolstered by volunteer, village-level “Child Protection Committees” that monitor and report on infractions.

With initiative and new ideas, an end to child labor is achievable, Mr. Satyarthi believes. “The world is not poor – our thinking is,” he has said.